Graham Young reviews new film God's Pocket starring the late screen star Philip Seymour Hoffman, in one of his final performances.

God's Pocket (15)

It’s been a sad week for the film industry with Lauren Bacall’s death following the suicide of Robin Williams.

So you might not be in the mood to see the late, wholly natural screen star Philip Seymour Hoffman standing next to a coffin at the beginning of this film.

Hoffman himself died aged just 46 on February 2 earlier this year and this is one of his final performances in a film about death, betting, butchery and an industrial accident.

Debut directed by Mad Men and Iron Man 2 actor John Slattery, it’s like catching an episode of an Americanised version of British TV series Peaky Blinders updated to the 1970s.

Hoffman is a trucker with a wife he can’t please, an unpaid debt and a body to bury.

All around him, God’s Pocket is a tight knight, blue collar Philadelphia community where everyone knows each other and kind of rubs along no matter what.

The colour balance, locations, set designs and dialogue have an authenticity we rarely see in bigger budget movies and the characters are, well, characters.

They represent the stoic dignity of the “dirty-faced, uneducated, neat-as-a-pin inside” working class types who tend to stay in their own communities no matter what, “often arguing about things they don’t understand such as race, religion and politics."

God’s Pocket doesn’t know how to end and some might find its balance of comedy and sombre drama can be uneven across a running time of just 89 minutes.

But you’ll never forget the sight of the obese-looking Hoffman running down a street or any of his fellow characters played by a fine supporting cast including Christina Hendricks as his wife, Richard Jenkins (news reporter), John Turturro (betting friend) and our own Eddie Marsan (funeral director).